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New Record, 125,300 COVID-19 Patients Hospitalized in U.S.; Two House Republicans Tell CNN They Expect At Least 140 GOP Colleagues to Vote Against Counting Electoral Votes; CDC Reports, Just 2.7 Million Americans Vaccinated So Far. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 01, 2021 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWSROOM: A good Friday morning and Happy New Year. I'm Ana Cabrera, Jim and Poppy are off today.

We begin 2021, sadly, with more than 125,300 people hospitalized with the coronavirus, that's a record high. The U.S. is set to pass 20 million confirmed cases today. That benchmark is really just a sobering indication that despite turning a page to this year, the U.S. has not turned over a new leaf. Listen to this, more than 10,000 deaths were reported in just the final three days of the year. Health officials are warning the worst of the pandemic is still ahead of us. More than 6.5 million people boarded airplanes over the last six days, as experts identify evidence that the new COVID-19 strain, the one that originated in the U.K., is here in the United States.

AMERICA is suffering as President Trump prepares to send and spend his final 20 days in office pushing his effort to overturn the election results. CNN has now learned that at least 140 House Republicans will back him up by objecting to Congress' certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

More on that, but, first, let's go to CNN's Nick Valencia, who joins us from a convention center turned field hospital in Atlanta that is planning to start taking patients today. Nick, fill us in.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Ana, and Happy New Year.

2020 has come and gone but, unfortunately, we can't say the same thing for the coronavirus pandemic. In just the last three days of 2020, new figures this morning from Johns Hopkins University shows that over 10,000 Americans died as a result of the coronavirus in the last three days. And the surges that we're seeing here in Georgia are troublesome, so much so, Ana, that the governor here, Brian Kemp, as you mentioned, is opening the Georgia World Congress Center behind me to act as a makeshift field hospital of sorts, 60 beds will be available for overflow. The health systems here are overwhelmed by the surges that we're seeing in the winter.

Here is what the governor had to say about this field hospital behind me yesterday.

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GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This is to help alleviate strains on our hospitals in the metro area as well as across the state. That facility will begin accepting patients at the end of this week.

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VALENCIA: And I did speak to the governor's office just a short time ago. They said, today, they are going to start accepting people inside that facility. Hospitalizations here also hitting records, more than 5,000 Georgians waking up in the hospital.

And just one last note here about this field hospital, the third time that it's going to be put to use. It was open at the start of the pandemic, again, in the summer, during the spike and, again, now, as we're seeing another surge here in the winter. Ana?

CABRERA: All right. Nick, thank you.

And as the surge is taking place, more states are reporting cases of this new, more contagious COVID strain first detected in the U.K. Let's go to CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, three new cases reported in San Diego, that's on top of the case, possibly two, in Colorado. And now another possible case in Florida. How worried should we be about this?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, what this is showing us is that these variants, no matter where they start in the world, the world is small, and we are going to see them spread pretty quickly here in the United States. We know that these variants seem to spread more quickly than other kinds of COVID.

You ask, should we be scared? What we should do is we should take action. There is so much COVID all around us, these strains spread even more quickly, it's even more reason to do the right thing. Social distance as much as you can, wear masks, because if you get sick or if you get someone sick, all you're doing is putting a burden on hospitals that are already horribly burdened.

So, let's take a look at what happened in San Diego. So, there were two men in their 40s, one in their 50s, who have this -- who were found to have this U.K. variant. And two had no travel history and, one, they still have to interview to see if he had a travel history. And none of them seem to have had any interaction with each other. And that is why county health officials are saying that they feel that this is widespread in the community.

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When you have people getting it with no interaction with each other, no known travel history, that means that it is likely widespread.

Now, let's take a look at a tweet from folks in Florida. They say Florida has evidence of the first case of the U.K. COVID-19 variant in Martin County. The individual is a male in his 20s with no history of travel. The department is working with the CDC on this investigation. We encourage all to continue practicing COVID-19 mitigation, in other words what I just said.

Now, let's look if there's any doubt about how widespread these are. The U.K. variant is in 29 countries. It's just overwhelming. Just 29 countries already that we know have this variant. In addition, the South African variant, which is another variant, which also seems to spread quickly, is already in eight countries and counting. New countries are popping up every day, unfortunately. Ana?

CABRERA: And, eventually, it is going to reach those who are more vulnerable, even if it's not necessarily a more severe strain, it could result in some pretty grim outcomes. Elizabeth Cohen, I appreciate it, thank you.

To the nation's capitol now, two House Republicans telling CNN they expect at least 140 of their GOP colleagues to vote against certifying electoral votes next week. And on the Senate side, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is standing by his pledge to object to certifying Joe Biden's victory as well.

CNN's Boris Sanchez is at the White House. Boris, a couple fellow GOP senators have publically criticized this move by Hawley but he is also getting praise from the president.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ana. Good morning and Happy New Year.

President Trump setting up this loyalty test for Republicans that ultimately may become a fork in the road for the party. Senator Ben Sasse yesterday calling Republicans who are supporting this move to object to the certification of the Electoral College results institutional arsonists, saying that they're playing with fire and that there is no evidence of widespread election fraud.

Privately, Mitch McConnell has been lobbying these same Republicans to avoid this scenario. It presents a headache for the party because the Republicans will have to go on the record and either side with reality, the fact that there is no evidence of election fraud, or with a president who continues propagating nonsense about election rigging on Twitter.

Meantime, the president though did thank Hawley for his support. The president has been campaigning publicly for Republicans to do this for some time. And Hawley is not alone. He's the only senator, but on the House side, there are a lot more names. Take a look. You have Alabama Representative Mo Brooks, a couple of incoming freshmen Congress people in Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn as well.

Overall, though, this has the potential to really have enormous ramifications for Republicans and the president does not seem to care. Again, he sees this as a loyalty test and he will continue to push these fraud claims likely all the way until January 20th. Ana?

CABRERA: Okay. Boris Sanchez, keep us posted. We know that this is a dynamic situation.

Joining us now is Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer and CNN Contributor. Ben, first of all, Happy New Year.

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Happy New Year.

CABRERA: Thanks for waking up early. Is there any foreseeable path for Republicans to actually stop certification of the vote?

GINSBERG: No, there's not. What happens if there is an objection to the electors from a state, and both a representative and a senator agree to it, then the body separates. So the Senate meets and the House meets. The House is controlled by Democrats. The Republicans currently have a very narrow majority but enough Republican senators have said they're opposed to this.

CABRERA: I mean, it's so rare for us to even be discussing and focusing on this because, typically, it's just sort of a procedural, repetitive thing that happens, we don't get much attention. I'm curious, why does Congress even have this role? What are the laws around Congress certifying the election?

GINSBERG: Well, the law is because there needs to be a central counting place for the Electoral College and it's always been a ministerial duty. This opening of the electoral slates from the states has been done in as little as 23 minutes in the past by the joint session of Congress.

And what's especially got a number of Republican senators mad is that the rules of the actual debate, if they have to go off in their separate chambers and look at individual states. Then the debate is limited to two hours and the rules clearly state that no senator can speak for more than five minutes, nor a representative can speak for five minutes. So there's not any ability to lay out a case. And, plus, what evidence is Josh Hawley going to present that hasn't already been rejected by a court of law, often President Trump appointed judges?

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CABRERA: Exactly. So, you have to wonder, what is the point. And, yet, are you surprised that, likely, at least 140 Republican members of the House are going along with it? And what do you think is the impact of numbers like that? Is there power in those numbers?

GINSBERG: Well, look, it's a pretty shameful vote, but I think they also see it as a freebie vote, because, in all honesty, the Democratic House and the Senate also is going to reject it. So in their short- term view, there are no consequences for this. But, of course, long- term, there are consequences for Republicans, and especially for Republicans in Congress, because this is a great gift to Joe Biden and his administration because it guarantees contentious split Republican conferences in both the House and the Senate.

And if you're trying to object to the Biden agenda, you need a unified conference as opposed to one where there's the suspicion that a number of senators are more interested in their personal agendas than the overall good of the philosophy of conservatism.

CABRERA: Well, I also wonder if the impact or the consequences would be the, you know, public at large questioning the integrity of America's democratic process of electing a president to the U.S.

GINBERG: To challenge the electoral slates in this way absolutely corrodes the foundations of the government. Remember that the actual slates of electors, that Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, will open up on January 6th, are ones that have contained the official counts and the approval of the relevant state officials. So that is the official count. And while there may be some renegade slates that have been submitted, they have no force of law at all.

CABRERA: You mention the vice president, who has to oversee all of this. There was this lawsuit from a Congressman Louie Gohmert and it was aimed at Vice President Pence, which seemed odd because you think they are both Republicans, aren't they on the same team, it was basically suing him trying to force him to ignore the electoral votes of several key states when Congress certifies the Electoral College votes on Tuesday.

Lawyers representing the vice president asked a federal judge to dismiss this lawsuit, saying they had the wrong defendant. Can you explain?

GINSBERG: Sure. Well, first of all, they were lawyers from the Trump Justice Department that filed that brief on behalf of the vice president. And their point was pretty simple and I think correct. To have a lawsuit, you need to have what lawyers call a case or controversy, which means a disagreement among the parties. Here, Gohmert's suit wanted to give Mike Pence more and, in fact, unilateral power to throw out a popular vote and decide an election. And what Gohmert wanted to do was get rid of the Electoral Count Act, a law from 1887, that's currently in place to govern this situation.

And what the Justice Department lawyers, on behalf of the vice president said was, you don't have a case against Mike Pence, there's no disagreement there. If you want to sue somebody, you need to sue Congress.

CABRERA: Does Pence actually have any power in this process?

GINSBERG: Well, it is a ministerial function. But as the chair of a joint session, he does have some powers. For example, when the slates are open, he can either recognize just the official slate from the states or he can recognize the renegade slates that have also been submitted. So, procedurally, it depends who has to make the objections.

If he only recognizes the official slates, then the renegade Republicans need to file the objections. If he recognizes both slates, then that's going to force Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell to raise the objections on the floor. So the way the issue gets postured on January 6th is up to the vice president.

CABRERA: There's so much nuance there we're learning, so much about this process. Thank you for educating us, Ben Ginsberg, good to have you here.

GINSBERG: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: Georgia on your mind? Just days ahead of that state's crucial runoffs, Republican Senator David Perdue has to quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus. Ahead, what impact this could have on an already tight race.

And the state of California is dealing with just a crippling number of patients because of the coronavirus. One L.A. County health officials says are on the brink of catastrophe. We'll take you there.

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CABRERA: Experts say it will be months before enough vaccine doses are given to change the course of this pandemic. This as the CDC says fewer than 3 million Americans so far have received a COVID-19 vaccine. That is far less than 20 million shots the Trump administration initially promised by the end of 2020.

I want to bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes. Kristen, we're hearing states are having some serious vaccine issues. Clearly, there's a delay in administering the vaccines.

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Why? What exactly is going on?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's start with the baseline here that this is a huge undertaking for these states that are already stretched incredibly thin as these health professionals are working with actual coronavirus cases. They have to decide who gets the vaccine and when, and they're also in charge of transporting and storing a very complicated drug, one that many of the states really did not have the infrastructure for.

Now, we're starting to see these incidents that show just how complicated a rollout like this is, and we'll start with what happened in West Virginia. 42 people went into a clinic, thought they were getting the Moderna vaccine and it turns out instead, they were getting the COVID-19 antibodies. Now, officials there say they don't believe there's any risk of harm but couldn't or wouldn't tell us how a mix up like that could occur. That's one thing we're seeing.

Another thing is human interference and sometimes human error. In D.C. we learned two doses were thrown out at a Safeway, they vaccinated 28 people, there was a remainder of the vaccine in vials, they were tossed out. Now, Safeway is working with the Department of Health to figure how to handle any remaining doses.

And perhaps the most heartbreaking episode that we have seen so far has been out of Wisconsin, where a pharmacist purposefully took out more than 50 vials of the Moderna vaccine from a refrigerator knowing that it would render them useless because of the temperature there. That was about 500 doses. He has since been arrested. He has been charged with three felonies. But all of this goes to show you how much things can really go sideways in something like this, a major process like this.

But I want to end one a positive note, which is, yes, 3 million is far below the 20 million, but still in America, 3 million people have gotten the vaccine and on top of that experts say the kinks in the system, they believe, they are going to be worked out in the next couple of weeks.

CABRERA: Okay. We'll be watching. We'll be continuing to follow it. Kristen Holmes, thank you and Happy New Year.

Joining us to talk about all of this is Public Health Physician and American College of Preventative Medicine Fellow Dr. Chris Pernell. Dr. Pernell also, by the way, participated in the Moderna vaccine trial. So, thank you for joining us, Happy New Year and good morning to you.

The administration was saying 20 million people would be vaccinated by the end of 2020. Doctor, less than 3 million people have received shots so far. Why isn't this going according to plan?

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: Lack of infrastructure support. This is a very ambitious undertaking and states and localities need resources. They need funding. One of these vaccines, the Pfizer vaccine in particular, is pretty challenging when it comes to storage, when it comes transportation. So I expected that we would see bumps in the road but I didn't expect that we would see this lack of consistency across the states.

CABRERA: Right. And to add some perspective to this conversation, we know the U.S. is lagging behind a number of other countries in the COVID-19 vaccinations. For example, per capita, Israel's average daily number of vaccine doses is more than ten times that of the U.S. What are other countries, like Israel, like Bahrain, which we see here is also far surpassing the U.S., even the U.K. is ahead of the U.S., what are these other countries doing differently that the U.S. can take note of, maybe learn from?

PERNELL: You see a more strategic distribution and allocation process. And what I mean by that, you see every level of government aligned. That's what has been lacking in this pandemic response since the beginning. We've had states resorting to different scenarios, different and plans and sometimes even their own science.

Unfortunately, when you don't have the top down and bottom up approach together, you see these mishaps, you see these uneven performance. And what we're seeing across the globe, all-hands-on-deck. But we don't have all-hands-on-deck, at least not in the same direction here.

CABRERA: You were part of the Moderna trial and you just found out you were among the participants who received the vaccine versus the placebo. How did you learn about this?

PERNELL: So, Ana, I enrolled to be a part of this trial in August. I lost my dad. My sister is a long hauler. I saw black and brown communities devastated and I was very, very eager to be a part of the solution. So I have received two injections, one at the end of August, one in October. And then as Moderna went through the emergency authorization use process, we started to hear from the study team that there would be a possibility that those who participated could be unblinded, because if health care workers had access to the vaccine, they did not want to deny those of us who may be placebo that opportunity.

And I found out last Tuesday, and I couldn't be happier. It was just a peace overcame me. I was always very assured that this was the right choice and the right decision for me. And to learn that I am a data point in what allowed us to now roll out this vaccine to millions of Americans is just a life come full circle moment, especially because of the tragedy that I faced personally.

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CABRERA: No doubt. And I'm so sorry you had to endure that type of tragedy, like so many other Americans right now.

I'm kind of curious if you had received the placebo, would you have opted to get out of the trial at this point so that you could get vaccinated?

PERNELL: Yes, I would have, because I think it's very important to get vaccinated. We waited for this moment. The science moved quite quickly because that was built upon actually a legacy of research in the lab that allowed us to be able to be so agile in creating a competitive, efficacious and safe solution. So if I had been on placebo, I was ready to get vaccinated.

But to hear that I had already received the vaccine and to be able to then go out into the community and to share my experience, to share my story, it felt quite empowering.

CABRERA: The Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine both require two doses. The U.K. just modified their guidance that people can get a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks after the first dose. What are your thoughts on that?

PERNELL: I think we should stay away from that. I understand the need to consider, how do you get more first dose injections in arms, but here in the United States, where we have faced that behemoth skepticism, especially in black and brown communities, where you have historical legacy of mistrust and a lack of trustworthiness demonstrated by the academic medical complex. I think we should do what the science laid the ground work for. Two injections, those injections separated by 24 or 28 days. I don't want to, in any way, unsettle the American public.

CABRERA: Dr. Chris Pernell, so great to have you with us. Thank you so much for doing your part and then some in helping us all through this crisis. Best to you in the New Year.

PERNELL: Thank you. CABRERA: In the Georgia runoffs, better than expected early voting turnout by registered Democrats is putting pressure on the GOP. Can Republicans turn out the base on Election Day despite President Trump's baseless voter fraud allegations? We'll discuss, next.

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